Home Town News This page intentionally left blank Home Town News William Allen White and the Emporia Gazette SALLY FOREMAN GRIFFITH NEW YORK OXFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1989 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1989 by Sally Foreman Griffith Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re- produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo- copying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Griffith, Sally Foreman. Home town news : William Allen White and the Emporia Gazette / Sally Foreman Griffith. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-19-505589-6 1. White, William Allen, 1868-1944. 2. Journalists—United States—Biography. 3. Emporia Gazette (Emporia, Kan. : 1899) 4. Emporia (Kan.)—Social life and customs. I. Title. PN4874.W52G75 1988 818'.5209—dc 19 [B] 88-18794 4 CIP 246897531 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To my parents, Mary Anne Foreman James Bradshaw Griffith This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This work has been shaped by the many communities of which I have been a part. I am indebted to those institutions that have provided essential finan- cial support at various stages of the work's development: Johns Hopkins University and the Smithsonian Institution provided graduate fellowships, and Villanova University a faculty summer research grant. Other institu- tions have ensured access to the materials essential to historical research. The librarians in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, the Kansas Collection of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the Univer- sity of Kansas, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and Special Collec- tions of the William Allen White Memorial Library at Emporia State Uni- versity and at Grinnell College and Villanova University were gracious and helpful. The staff of the Lyon County Historical Museum in Emporia greeted me with professional assistance and genuine friendship during my visits to Emporia. None of this work would have been possible without the support of the White family, Mrs. William L. White and Mr. and Mrs. Paul David Walker, who allowed me access to materials in their possession and generous permission to quote widely from William Allen White's writ- ings. At Oxford University Press in New York, Sheldon Meyer was con- sistently encouraging and Gilda Abramowitz's editing was admirably alert and sensitive. The weekly seminars of the history department at Johns Hopkins Uni- versity when I was a graduate student created a challenging yet congenial environment in which to develop as a historian. No doubt, many of my ideas were shaped there in exchanges that I have long since forgotten. All of the Hopkins history faculty contributed to my education to some extent, but my teachers, Louis Galambos, John Higham, Vernon Lidtke, and Ken- neth Lynn, contributed most through their knowledge and their commit- ment to the collective scholarly enterprise. This work evolved through countless retellings of White's story, in in- formal conversations and at scholarly conferences. Each telling before a different audience added to my understanding, but I have benefited most from the responses of those who read part or all of the work at different stages in its long development: James L. Baughman, James Bergquist, John Milton Cooper, the late Catherine L. Covert, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, David Glassberg, Richard L. McCormick, William S. Pretzer, James K. Pringle, VIII • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Richard A. Schwarzlose, Kate Torrey, June Underwood, Joseph F. Wall, and Bernard A. Weisberger. During my tenure at the National Museum of American History as a Smithsonian graduate fellow, Elizabeth Harris and Stanley Nelson of the Division of Graphic Arts shared with me their ex- pertise in the world of "practical printers," and Carl Scheele, now retired from the Division of Community Life, offered his sage perspective on American culture. Portions of Chapter 9 appeared previously in somewhat different form in Mass Media Between the Wars: Perceptions of Cultural Tension, 1918-1941, Catherine L. Covert and John D. Stevens, eds. (Syra- cuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1984), pp. 141-55. Whatever insights I have into small-town life are the product of my sin- gular good fortune in having been born and reared in Lusk, Wyoming. My parents taught me, among many other things, the importance of community participation. During my years of working after school at the Lusk Herald, the staff demonstrated to me the best values of community journalism in action. Jane and Gerald Bardo, in particular, continue to provide a shining example of how life can be deepened and enriched through commitment to a community. S.F.G. Contents Introduction 3 PART I The New Man 1. The Education of a "Somebody" 13 2. The New Editor 32 PART II The Old Order Changeth 3. A Practical Printer 67 4. The Making of a Progressive 92 5. Booster Progressivism 113 6. Spokesman for Community 139 7. Community Journalism 159 PART III Nationalizing the Community 8. Booster Nationalism 187 9. Mass Media Come to the Small Town 211 Epilogue 240 Notes 243 Index 283